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CRAIG DE LANCEY
State University of New York at Oswego
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106
On Emotions and the Explanation of Behavior 107
core fear system extends from the temporal lobe through the anterior and
medial hypothalamus to the lower brain and specific autonomic compon-
ents of the brain stem and spinal cord. (Panksepp, 1998, p. 213) Direct
stimulation of parts of this system can initiate fear responses. The role of a
brain structure called the amygdala in fear conditioning and related kinds of
learning and memory formation has been well studied, revealing that fear
conditioning normally integrates but does not require higher cortical func-
tions, and that these higher cortical functions can occur without causing
fear in situations where some elements of the subcortical neural systems of
fear are lesioned. (LeDoux, 1996) This supports the view that fear evolved
(likely prior to the evolution of higher cognitive abilities) as a way to
respond to threats in the environment, and that the behaviors that fear
causes can occur independently of higher cognitive capabilities because they
need not be generated nor controlled by those functions. This growing body
of research provides reason to think that fear is a natural kind, identifiable
in the neural systems that enable it and because of the important functional
roles that it playsroles which are essential explanatory elements in
a number of linked sciences (including neuroscience, psychology, and
ethology).
may be a contributing cause to the action; it may also be the main cause of
the action.
To see the advantage of our view, it is helpful to consider how advocates
of rationalizing explanations have treated some relevant cases of apparently
arational action. Michael Smith (1998) maintains that all actions can be
given rationalizing explanations in terms of agents beliefs and desires.
Emotions enter into explanations of actions, but where they do, they merely
supplement and presuppose rationalizing explanations. Smith argues
that the grieving mans action of pressing himself to the clothes of his
deceased wife is, in fact, explicable in terms of the mans beliefs and desires.
To give such an explanation, Smith says, we look among the mans beliefs
and desires to find an appropriate pair, which will give an answer to our
question of why he is doing what he is doing. What Smith finds is that the
man is doing what he is doing because he desires to press himself to his dead
wifes clothes and believes that he can do so by doing just what he is
doing. (p. 22) Smith admits that this explanation attributes a relatively
bizarre belief-desire pair to the grieving man, and that we will not find it
completely satisfactory on its own. The explanation can be supplemented
with the information that the man is grieving, which adds further intelli-
gibility because grief at the loss of a loved one is by definition, a state in
which we are disposed to think, and to desire and to do all sorts of things.
There is no basis for Smiths claim that an explanation in terms of grief
supplements and presupposes a rationalizing explanation. There are, how-
ever, two strong objections to Smiths explanation. First, the rationalizing
explanation is a bad one. It is bad because, so long as it can be assumed that
one is aware of performing a certain action, it is always possible to explain
that action in this way, by attributing a desire to perform that action and a
belief that one can achieve it by doing whatever one does. Any explanation
of a type, which is not so generally available would be preferable. Second,
the rationalizing explanation is superfluous. Given that Smith accepts that
grief is by definition a state in which we are disposed to desire and to do
all sorts of things, why not admit that this could be a case in which
someone just does one of those things, without appealing to the elements of
the rationalizing explanation? That the man grieves for his wife is already
sufficient explanation. This is exactly why the rationalizing explanation
sounds so bizarre; it comes along too late.
Hursthouses original account of the case as involving an action that can
be explained in terms of grief alone is adequate, and preferable to Smiths
revision. In arguing for this point, however, it is no use to contest Smiths
explanation by insisting that one must be wrong in attributing to the man
the desire to press himself to his wifes clothes, and the means-end belief that
he can accomplish this by doing whatever it is that he is doing. Belief-desire
explanations are notoriously easy to forgehence, Daniel Dennetts sugges-
tion that one might get away with taking the intentional stance to a
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stationary rock by claiming that it desires to stay put and believes that it can
stay put by doing whatever it is doing, provided that one can say this with a
straight face. The point here is rather that the case of the grieving man is a
plausible example of an emotional action, which need not be given a
rationalizing explanation, and which can be given an adequate, simpler,
and better explanation of the action in terms of an agents emotions.
It might be objected that the mans beliefs must enter into the explanation
of some aspects of his behavior. Surely, it is relevant to the mans action that
the man believes that these are his wifes clothes. It is not our intention,
however, to deny the plausiblity of the claim that the man has such beliefs, or
to deny that these beliefs are relevant to explaining some of his actions. This
particular belief certainly can enter into an explanation along with the mans
grief, serving to explain, for example, why he presses himself against these
clothes and not some others. But this belief is not a means-ends belief which
might rationalize his action. So it is not the basis for a rationalizing explana-
tion, which might compete with the emotional explanation of the mans
action. It is fully consistent with our view that an agents beliefs can explain
some aspects of the behavior, which is motivated by the agents emotions.
The advocate of rationalizing explanations may respond that there are
more plausible ways than Smiths to explain the case of the grieving man by
attributing beliefs and desires to him. The flaccidity of the framework of
belief-desire attribution ensures that with just a little ingenuity one will be
able to come up with any number of alternative explanations. For example,
perhaps the man desires to maintain a connection with his lost wife, or
perhaps he desires to have an experience that makes his memory of her more
vivid. Although clearly people can have desires like these, and they can act
on them, it would be a mistake to insist that one of these explanations must
be correct, and that we cannot make do with an explanation in terms of
grief alone. For the emotional explanation is the simpler one, and the
rationalizing explanations come with a cost. It is not just that the choice
between such explanations appears to be arbitrary in light of what we know
about the case. In attributing such complex desires in order to explain the
case, we attribute a specific interpretation of the significance of the mans
action to the man himself. Yet the man may or may not make any such
interpretation. If he does not, the rationalizing explanation is misleading.
The very indiscipline of the belief-desire framework, which makes it so easy
to invent alternatives to explanations in terms of an agents emotions,
creates this risk.
The difference between emotional explanations and belief-desire explan-
ations is further illuminated in another of Hursthouses cases of arational
action, in which hateful Jane scratches out the eyes of a photograph of Joan.
According to Hursthouse, Janes hatred for Joan explains her action as well
as anything could. Peter Goldie detects a difference between this case and
the case of the grieving man. (2000, p. 28) While the grieving mans action is
On Emotions and the Explanation of Behavior 119
primitively intelligible given his emotional state, what Jane does is not
primitively intelligible. Nor is it primitively intelligible that Jane desires to
scratch out the eyes of a photograph because she hates Joan.
Goldie suggests an explanation of hateful Janes action as expressive of
a wish. In a wish, one desires something and also imagines, or is disposed
to imagine, the desire to be satisfied. So, hateful Jane desires to scratch out
Joans eyes, and imagines herself doing this as she scratches out the eyes of
the photograph. Goldie is careful to distinguish this type of explanation
from a rationalizing explanation, since we should not attribute any bizarre
belief to Joan about how scratching the photograph would satisfy any of her
desires. Still, there is a rather cognitive slant to this explanation. People may
have wishes of this type, and this may be a partial explanation of the case.
However, the wish-explanation is incomplete, because it does not explain
why the desire to harm Joan together with some imagining should result in
any action at all. Not all imaginings are cases of active pretending, as this
one appears to be. Why does this particular pairing of desire and imagin-
ation bring about an action? The motivational power of Janes hatred of
Joan (or at least of the anger involved in her hatred) is surely at the root of a
satisfactory answer.
We would like to suggest an alternative explanation of Janes action as
the result of a redirected emotion. The concept of redirection has an
established role in explanation in ethology.10 (Tinbergen, 1961) An example
is the case of the lioness. Irritated upon having her tail bitten by a cub, she
turns to a tree trunk and gives it a good scratching. What has happened is
that an aggressive response to the cub has been redirected at another target.
What works to spare the cub also spares the top of many a child whose
exasperated parent pounds a tabletop instead. An explanation in terms of
redirected anger makes what the lioness does intelligible. This suggests that
there may be no need to invent cognitive epicycles to obtain an explanation
of Janes behavior. Unlike the lioness, Jane surely can make wishes, but like
the lioness, she neednt. An agents beliefs, desires and powers of imagin-
ation may well constitute some of the restraints, which account for the
redirection of emotional behavior, but sometimes the best explanation
requires less cognitive apparatus.11
The ease with which we find ourselves introducing rationalizing explan-
ations for behavior is sometimes a source of confusion and error. During
the war in Bosnia there were reports of drunken prison guards who beat
captives to death and then continued to beat them until their corpses were
fully disintegrated. One report speculated about the guards motives.
Perhaps they were motivated by the desire to demonstrate complete power
over their enemiespower sufficient to determine the very forms of their
bodies. Perhaps it was the desire to deprive their victims of everything down
to their last recognizable features. Perhaps, but what if the guards had less
imaginative motives? The guards were surely in the grip of a terrible received
120 NOUS
ideology, which gave them some relevant means-ends beliefs. This may have
contributed to what the guards did, and may have fueled some of the more
proximate causes such as anger and hatred. Nevertheless, at the time of the
beatings, the guards may have been motivated primarily by intense rage,
which did not abate until long after their victims had died. Perhaps they
were also motivated by joy or sexual arousal at what they did, and this too
would not fade until long after the beating had lost any other point. The
tendency to over-intellectualize the motives behind terrible actions is famil-
iar. Where an action is particularly terrible, some people prefer an explan-
ation, which appeals to a motive that is particularly thoughtful, imaginative
or elaborate. Such preferences, however, may not track the truth.
Although we may sometimes make rationalizing explanations of the
belief-desire variety when they are inappropriate, it is our contention that
this is far less common than defenders of reductive cognitive theories of the
emotions might lead us to believe. Our common sense folk methods of
explaining behavior include alternatives to rationalizing explanations. We
often describe the actions of others through attributions of emotions. We
also understand ourselves in terms of emotions. Thus, it would be an
explanation both for us, and for the grieving husband, that he acts the
way he does because he is grieving, just as it would be an explanation for
us and for Jane to say that she is consumed with hatred for Jane. Because
people understand themselves as emotional beings and know about the
regular motivational roles of their emotions, peoples actions can be intel-
ligible to them as appropriate responses to their emotions. Thus, their
emotions can make sense of their actions from their own points of view.
That the nature of some emotions is in part inherited, so that their motiv-
ational roles may in part be illuminated by biological and psychological
theories does not vitiate this point.
Giving primacy of place to rationalizing explanations leads to intellec-
tualizing the explanation of behavior. This can be an attractive way of
making ourselves intelligible because it brings the explanation of behavior
into an idealized space of reasons. It is widely held that this is where
justification happens, and justification is a fine form of intelligibility. Of
course, we dont live solely in such a space of reasons. Since we are
passionate creatures, trying to locate our behaviors in this space alone will
mislead us and make us less intelligible to ourselves. It is worth considering
what follows from this admission. It may be thought that there is no great
consequence of recognizing that some complex behaviors are not amenable
to rationalizing explanations, since we already require different means for
the explanation of various kinds of bodily changes, reflex actions and the
like. These are to be explained in a distinct way, by taking what Daniel
Dennett calls the design stance. Reflection about the behavioral expres-
sions of emotions should call this into question. If some emotions are
grounded in design-level features, for example, in the affect programs, and
On Emotions and the Explanation of Behavior 121
Notes
1
In the case of some emotions, it might further be argued that occurrence of a motiv-
ational bodily state is sufficient for the occurrence of the emotion, but we do not make any
claim of this type in what follows. In claiming that the occurrence of a motivational bodily
state is necessary for the occurrence of some emotions, our view contradicts the extreme
cognitivist views that all emotions are fundamentally judgments of value, or that they are
completely reducible to belief-desire complexes. We hold that this is an advantage, because
such accounts of the emotions are empirically false. This is not the place to criticize cogniti-
vism about emotion, so much as to develop an alternative way of thinking about some
emotions. For discussions of problems with cognitivism see (Deigh, 1994; Griffiths, 1997;
and DeLancey, 2002).
2
Here we cannot discuss the frequently used distinction between basic and non-basic
emotions. Our characterization of the M-emotions will by-pass this distinction. In particular,
we want to remain neutral on the question of whether we should think of an emotion like
hatred as a complex emotion, which can be given a compositional analysis in terms of basic
emotions such as anger, fear or disgust, and other mental states.
3
The precise scope of the affect program theory is not yet settled. The psychologist Ekman
hypothesizes affect programs underlying anger, fear, joy, sadness, disgust and surprise, emo-
tions for which there are characteristic, pancultural facial expressions. (1980) The neuroscientist
Panksepp claims that there is at present good biological evidence for seven innate emotional
systems: fear, anger, sorrow, anticipatory eagerness, play, sexual lust, and maternal nurturance.
(1998, p. 47) Our list is a merger of Ekmans and Panksepps lists. Griffiths (1997) gives an
introduction to a version of the affect program theory for philosophers.
4
This is consistent with the observation that emotions can be influenced to a great degree
by higher cognition. Clearly, for normal human beings, they are.
5
There is a third way in which the class of M-emotions might be extended. One might
argue that certain other mental states have motivational structures significantly analogous to
that of the paradigm M-emotions. We do not do that here.
6
Chapter 5 of (DeLancey, 2002) discusses the intentionality of the basic emotions. The
structure of an affect program allows that the mechanisms that initiate and guide an emotional
response involve contentful mental representations. This may be the basis of an explanation of
the intentionality of some emotional states of mind.
7
Griffiths argues that the class of emotions as a whole is heterogenous on the grounds that
basic emotions grounded in the affect programs induce certain characteristic short-term
physiological responses, e.g. facial expression, while other higher cognitive emotions do
not. This argument is consistent with the claim that AP-emotions can also motivate complex
coordinated behaviors.
8
The case of thirst can be a little misleading. Since we do talk of a person being thirsty for
a particular type of drink, the word thirst is sometimes used to mean a desire-like intentional
state of mind. We can accept this point, while still distinguishing drives, affects and desires. In
addition to their intentionality, emotions differ from drives in that they are more flexible and
122 NOUS
display greater dependence on learning, especially with respect to the conditions that trigger
them.
9
Some would not call intentional any action which fails to be explicable in terms of the
agents rationalizing reasons. This looks to us like a maneuver to preserve a theory. Though we
maintain that an action can be intentional if it is done in awareness and under a sufficient
degree of voluntary control, we would like a better characterization. This much is apparent:
given the absence of rationalizing beliefs and desires, the excuse I was angry doesnt always
establish that one acted unintentionally.
10
Tinbergen discusses redirected affective behaviors under the title displacement activ-
ities. The phenomena of redirection are surely complex and require further investigation.
Goldie describes symbolic relations between the objects which elicits an emotion and the object
to which emotional responses are directed. (2000, p. 30) These are surely relevant for some
explanations of redirected behaviors.
11
Might not the case of the grieving man be best understood in a similar way? Whatever
else it includes by way of an agents beliefs and desires, grief involves sorrow over the loss of
someone one cares about. A plausible explanation of the grieving mans action is that it is the
result of redirected care for his wife.
12
Earlier versions of this paper were presented to a symposium session at a meeting of the
American Philosophical Association Eastern Division and to the Department of Philosophy at
SUNY Fredonia. We thank our commentator, Laura Sizer, members of the audiences at those
presentations, and especially the anonymous referees of this journal for helpful comments.
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